Lit Bits & A Bit About Aloud

• The week in bookish events is up at LAist...my, my things are moving so slowly in these summer months.
• BUT, what is easily the most anticipated reading of the week (month? year?): William Gibson at Vroman's on Friday night. Seriously. Must make it out there if I do nothing else productive with my literary mind this week.  His Spook Country is reviewed by Ed Park in Sunday's LAT.
• I'm wading through many books, none of which I'm loving (none of which are listed at top left) and so I'll refrain from discussion until I've either found something I love or hate it so much I can't sit quietly on my hands.  I'm looking forward to many books though, does that count?
• Despite the wedding madness (we are closing in on the home stretch, approx. one month to go), I've got some good stuff planned for the old CB blog in the next few weeks and months. It may delight and surprise. It may shock and offend. But I can assure you it will be like fireworks in the shape of cowboy hats (yes I'm doing some terribly late iTunes catching up on 30 Rock)...utterly unexpected but oh so good.
• The book events world has gone quiet this month and I can't quite sort it out. I suspect it has to do with summer and people who go "summering" (who are those people?) in various parts of the world where it is less hot and miserable than downtown Los Angeles. Or more so. To each his own. Everyone is on hiatus. Everyone is taking a break. Everyone is on vay-cay, if you will. The good news about all this "we don't have time for book stuff in the month of August" business is that everyone seems to be lining up their ducks for September. For October. For fall and beyond. And things are looking mighty good for us in LA! The ALOUD series at the Central Library (who have given us top notch readings for a very long time) has just posted their calendar for Sept/Oct and some yummy stuff will ensue:
  • Monday - September 10th - Nell Freudenberger & Jennifer Gilmore
  • Monday - October 22nd - Edmund White (@!?@?#?#@)
  • Tuesday - October 23rd - Oliver Sacks
• May this be the beginning of a beautiful, surprising, maddening, delicious season of author readings, book signings and overall bookish tomfoolery. Anything less will disappoint in spades.